


What Was Lost

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-19
Updated: 2006-03-19
Packaged: 2019-02-02 19:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Janet had slipped away once, they aren't letting go again.





	What Was Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

She sat in the darkness of the living room and poured another shot. The whiskey burned as it went down, but did nothing to shake the chill wrapped around her heart. The tears were gone, but still the sobs shook her slender frame. She had failed. Another clink and she swallowed. Darkness completely separate from the one she sat in loomed before her. She swallowed again. The darkness took a step closer.

She had sent them through the Stargate, all four of them, healthy and laughing as they walked up the ramp and into the event horizon. She'd watched from the control room, she was always there when she could be. The last one through had turned to wave, a jaunty flip of the cap that settled back on silver hair. 

Less than an hour later, they were back. Klaxons blared throughout the base, she and her team heading for the gate room before the first echoes faded. Twenty minutes later, they were dead. 

The platelets, fluids, plasma, packing, and sutures, nothing had stopped the bleeding. Nothing could close those terrible wounds; keep their lives from spilling onto the floor. They didn't even make it out of the gate room. She had all the training, years spent learning, but despite everything she'd tried, they had died. One by one, even as she raced between them, her team working all around her, sutures and packing trailing, one by one, they died. 

The darkness was almost within reach now. The numbness had begun and she poured the last of the bottle, the last drink to fallen comrades. Darkness took a final step forward and she fell into those open arms.

_"O'Neill."_

_"Go ahead."_

_"Target is gone."_

_"Roger that."_

Teal'c carried Janet Frasier to her bedroom and he laid her gently on the bed. Daniel helped Carter get Fraiser out of her clothes and under the covers. Jack stood silently by the door. Apparently, keys worked from one reality to the next, he thought. For some reason, that bothered him, a lot. 

"I'll take first watch, sir." 

Jack watched his youngest teammate standing in the darkness looking down at Fraiser, worry and sadness in Daniel's posture. For the third time since entering the room, Jack saw Daniel reach down and gently touch Frasier's arm, as if to reassure his self she was real. He glanced over at Carter, seeing the frailty echoed in her face, eyes wide as if she was looking at a ghost. Carter bit her lip and turned to pull the big chair by the window closer to the bed. 

"Daniel, Carter." O'Neill's voice pulled his teammates attention back to the doorway where he stood. "No one's leaving, understand?" Jack looked at them both, making sure they got his message. 

"Yes Sir."

Daniel turned troubled eyes back towards the bed. Jack knew this was hardest on Daniel. He had watched her die before. 

"Daniel." Jack walked over to his friend. "This is going to work out fine. Trust me." With that, Daniel looked at Jack. Jack held up his hand as Daniel started to speak. "Ahh Ahh, just trust me."

"Go and make some coffee, it's gonna be a long night."

With that, Daniel nodded and left the bedroom. Within minutes the rest of his teammates heard the faint sounds of coffee being made in the kitchen. 

" We have lost warriors in battle before, O'Neill." Teal'c paused. " It is rare to get them back, only to face the fear of losing them again. We will help our younger friends survive this journey, for though it is difficult and painful, it is a journey they and she need not make alone." Jack stared down the hallway, turning as he felt the large Jaffa's hand on his shoulder. 

"Thanks, T."

Jack walked into the room, watching as Carter covered Fraiser with another blanket. She didn't stir.

"Her pulse is strong," Carter said. "She's just in shock and..."

"Yeah, I know." Jack rubbed his hand over his face, and then rubbed his eyes. "Report, Major."

"I managed to get the toxicology and mission report from her laptop. Her lab must have rushed it." She motioned Jack back towards the open door where Teal'c silently stood. As she ran her fingers through her short hair, Jack could see the strain on her face as she glanced once more back at their friend. Jack knew Carter and Daniel were on edge due to the shock of finding out about all the alternate realities, their own apparent deaths, this Frasier turning up through their gate and collapsing at the sight of them and then the worry over locating and or losing this Frasier. Jack figured Frasier was suffering from as much shock at seeing them alive as they had from seeing her. Frasier just had more people to be shocked about. He realized how the last forty-eight hours had taken its toll on them all, but especially the younger, scientific half of SG-1. 

"Sir, it didn't matter. 'Her' SG-1 was dead before they stepped back through the gate. Whatever it was that attacked them, its saliva, the teeth and claws; they all contained a virulent anti-coagulant. It multiplied when it hit their blood stream." Carter stopped and shook her head. Teal'c stepped closer and placed his arm around his teammate. 

"Carter." Jack looked at his 2IC, his voice still and quiet. The tension and horror of the day was still evident in Carter's face. Jack knew that Carter and Daniel were still shocked from the loss of their alternate selves and that they were worried about losing this alternate Frasier as well. Carter cleared her throat, and nodded, responding to her commanding officer's question. 

"Sir, it turned their blood to water. There was nothing she... Janet could have done. This contagion killed off every clotting factor in their bodies. We, I mean, they completely bled out and there wasn't a damn thing that could have saved them, us." Carter stopped. Scientifically discussing your own demise, even in an alternate reality, well, Jack knew the frustration and confusion his team was dealing with, this Alternate Reality crap was the stuff of nightmares. He also knew what pushed this CMO from a Cheyenne Mountain Complex he had never been to take the dark path she was currently on. Jack knew this path. 

Jack sighed, looked out the door, down the darkened hallway. "Contamination risk?"

Carter shook her head. " Janet said that once the victim died, the virus, whatever it was, it died with the host it infected. She had the bod..." She stopped, cleared her throat and spoke again. "The bodies were all burned before she came through the gate." 

"You and Teal'c keep watch, I'm going to go call Hammond, let him know we've got her, that we will be staying as long as necessary." Jack watched as Carter walked back into the room, settling into the big chair by the bed. Teal'c stood next to him, a silent presence, comforting in his silence.

Daniel came back in, placing equipment quietly on the desk in the room, and then walked silently over to sit on the side of the bed. Sam sat in the big chair, both of them watching, and waiting. They needed this now, the comfort of just being there. Jack understood this. Another path he had traveled. The single lamp by the bed cast shadows against the darkness, a pool of light over the still figure. Jack knew that whatever reality she had come from, this was her home now. Jack looked at his team, then at the one person who had come closest to making SG-1 a five-man team, the one person they all needed to be whole again. Jack cleared his throat, failing once again at the words, but knowing his team, his family, he knew he didn't have to say much. 

"We'll get her through this."

"I'm confident." Daniel said.

"Me, too."

"As am I."

Jack turned. Some things never changed, no matter what universe or reality. For the first time that day, a faint smile lit his face as he walked away.


End file.
